Trudy Gold
Holocaust Education Today
Summary
Trudy Gold and Sa'ad Khaldi discuss why, after years of teaching, Khaldi decided to specialize in Holocaust education.
Trudy Gold
Trudy Gold was the CEO of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and a founding member of the British delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Throughout her career she taught modern Jewish history at schools, universities, and to adult groups and ran seminars on Holocaust education in the UK, Eastern Europe, and China. She also led Jewish educational tours all over the world. Trudy was the educational director of the student resources “Understanding the Holocaust” and “Holocaust Explained” and the author of The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization.
Sa'ad Khaldi
Sa’ad Khaldi is a UK educator with an Arab and Jewish heritage. In 2007 he became the first Palestinian Holocaust Educational Fellow after studying with the Imperial War Museum and Yad Vashem in Lithuania, Poland, and Israel. The following year Sa’ad was invited to present his education research project for teachers called “Crossroads to Palestine” at Yad Vashem’s Summer Conference. Since then he has deepened his knowledge of pre- and post- WW2 Palestine and Israel-related events. His knowledge base is possibly unique, as his father was a key leader in the West Bank Palestinian community and after 1967 opened the door to direct dialogue with prominent Israeli politicians—by agreeing that Israel was a “State of Necessity.”
Well, the European Union does look at, and it does offer grants and so on. There is financial support for Palestinians on the West Bank, and one of the conditions of that support has been to stop any overt antisemitism and so on. But at the same time, we have a split society. Palestinian … Let’s not fool ourselves. And when I talk with my father about this issue, of course we have now the West Bank and we have Gaza, and we have all sorts of rival political factions, so you can’t talk about unity. It’s a disunited situation that is quite difficult to manage. The Jordanians do have an influence, and some Palestinian children follow the Jordanian curriculum. They don’t necessarily follow the Palestinian one. We’ve even had problems in this country with British Muslim schools, Muslim independent schools following Saudi curriculum, and that was one of the things I had to report to Ofsted about what was the impact of that, and was there any hidden antisemitism within that? So yeah, there are real issues there.
It is a form of racism, yes.
Well, this is … We even have problems with the misuse of the word “Holocaust.” “Holocaust” was a word that was created in 1942 in a famous speech. It means “holy sacrifice”. Many children don’t know what it actually means. It is so misused now in the age of communication. And I will move between and introduce the word “Holocaust” of Shoah, of Gerbin, and explain, and it’s even misspelt in terms of… The word “antisemitism” is spelt with a capital S, implying Jews are a race, and with a hyphen. Again, that’s in… I read public articles in newspapers, and they misspell the word “anti-Semitism.” The Times is the only newspaper currently that’s spelling it correctly. But I despair of other editors.